


Poker Night in Atlantis and Other Improbable Events

by apple_pi



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-15
Updated: 2013-03-15
Packaged: 2017-12-05 08:19:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apple_pi/pseuds/apple_pi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Teyla, there was just no knowing what the hell she had in her hand. She always showed up for poker nights, and she always went back to her room better off than she'd left it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poker Night in Atlantis and Other Improbable Events

**Author's Note:**

> My very first SGA fic! Posted in July 2006 for Secrethappiness's birthday!

Teyla. Teyla was the one to watch out for.

All those years of not giving anything away for free, of trading on behalf of her people, had lent her an uncanny ability to bluff. With Teyla, there was just no knowing what the hell she had in her hand. She always showed up for poker nights, and she always went back to her room better off than she'd left it. John played everything close to his chest with Teyla there.

Ford had been eliminated as serious competition early in the proceedings. He probably could've been okay at the game, but he was easily distracted by cute scientists, hot nurses, one memorable fitter-than-fit marine who played with her dogtags, occasionally drawing the chain into her mouth for a moment. (Even John had to admit that was distracting. He'd lost two hands in a row when Corporal Hays joined the game, and only Ford's successful wooing of the other marine - right out of the room to either his quarters or hers - had saved him that night. Bridget Hays was very distracting, especially in her too-tight PT t-shirt with those dogtags dangling from her teeth.)

Zelenka was almost as good as Teyla. He had this trick of blinking thoughtfully behind those coke-bottle glasses, hair standing wildly on end (why, why did Rodney make fun of John's hair when Radek was right there, begging for mockery?) as he looked at his cards. The thoughtful look could mean anything - good cards, bad cards, a potentially fatal error in a subroutine currently running on primary systems, too many of the orange almost-lima-beans at dinner. John paid attention when Zelenka played, which was most of the time.

Elizabeth stopped by sometimes and sat in for a few hands. She wasn't bad, wasn't good. Didn't really give a damn, mostly. She liked being with them, laughing at their curses and gloating, putting aside her loneliness for a while: turned into Elizabeth, instead of Dr. Weir. John kind of wished Elizabeth would come play more often, and not just because it flustered Zelenka wildly when she did. John thought poker night was probably good for her.

Carson sucked at poker night, or so they'd all thought until the third week, when the good doctor suddenly revealed that he'd apparently been suckering them all and was now prepared to reveal himself as the sharp he actually was. He started off (as usual) tense and hunched anxiously over his hand, round face wrinkled with worry, and halfway through the night abruptly become Wild Bill Hickok, only bothering to sit up from his relaxed sprawl when he raked the chips toward himself at the ends of sixteen consecutive hands. It was a ruse that would only work one time, Rodney pointed out at the end of the night (disgruntlement writ large across his face), and John cheerfully reminded Carson of how, exactly, Wild Bill had gone to meet his maker. Carson had smiled with more teeth than were usually evident, and John was a little relieved that the doc's duties only rarely let him show up and clean out their metaphorical wallets.

And then there was Rodney. Ah, Rodney, John thought, watching him across the table.

Rodney was absolutely, unquestionably wretched at poker. He could guess ( _guess, my ass_ , Rodney scoffed in John's head) almost exactly what every other player held. He could gauge which cards would come to him when he called for replacements in his own hand. He could judge just how much to wager, when to raise and when to fold.

He could not keep a goddamn thing off his face.

John slumped back in his seat and smiled at no one, at everyone, as he watched Rodney. Rodney's mouth was tight, pressed inward and drawn down sharply at the left corner. He kept glancing from Ford to the small pile of chips in the center of the table, and his reaction when the lieutenant tossed on two blue chips was gorgeous - parted lips, flicker of eyes to his hand again, resettling in the chair. John's smile didn't change an iota, though he now knew - as did at least Teyla and Zelenka - that Rodney had good cards. The no-talking-during-a-hand rule (instituted by common - non-McKay - agreement) was obviously _killing_ him.

A couple more go-rounds: the stack of chips grew larger, Rodney's face grew pinker and John had the almost irresistible urge to lean across and suck gently on that crooked lower lip, watch Rodney's long lashes flutter closed, hands go lax and loose. John resisted, and folded along with Zelenka, Teyla and Sergeant Isaza (a new recruit for the evening, and too young and fresh-faced to be a poker-playing threat, unless she hid Beckett-like proclivities), letting Rodney and Ford fight it out. Ford finally called and Rodney slapped down a straight flush, grinning wildly.

"Dammit!" Ford yelled, and threw his cards down.

"Ha!" Rodney said. "You should never have given away that three of clubs, Lieutenant. If you'd held onto it you would've ended up with a full house, not just two pairs. You did have the three, didn't you?" Barely waiting for Ford's grudging nod, Rodney launched into a long-winded explanation of just how, exactly, his genius gave him an advantage in simple games like poker, and why the rest of them shouldn't even bother playing with him, and how eventually he'd probably have to stop coming to poker night altogether because he'd feel pity, either for the state of their bank accounts or that of their brains, and perhaps they should all just give him their ATM codes immediately, as it would short-circuit the long, drawn-out agony of watching Rodney McKay triumph again and again until finally they gave up and slunk away to lick their wounds in private, broken men in body and finance.

"Long, drawn-out agony of listening to Rodney McKay triumph for one single time, _finally_ ," Zelenka muttered into John's ear. 

John snickered. "Time to call it a night, boys and girls," he said more loudly, cutting off McKay, who threatened to engage in a monologue of Shakespearean proportions; Rodney made a sulky face but even he knew he should quit while he was (for once) ahead. John walked through the dim, empty corridors with him, listening to him ramble about poker and chance and random number theory and random number generators and passwords and thumbprint security and retinal scans and genetic coding and genetic drift and evolution and the ATA gene and then they were outside Rodney's quarters.

"What?" Rodney said when John pushed him gently against the wall just beside the door; the door made its weird little metallic swish open and then shut, leaving them standing in the deserted hallway. John leaned closer, drawing the deck of cards from his pocket and holding it under Rodney's nose (nice, slightly sunburned from M7R-776 where he'd forgotten his sunblock and complained about it for the entire mission, at least until Lieutenant Ford offered to push his face into some handy mud, making for very effective sunscreen).

"Wanna play?"

John resisted, again, the urge to lean further in and suck on Rodney's lower lip. Delayed gratification and all that; it wasn't as though anyone was around to see them at this hour.

"I can't imagine why you'd want to, since I've already proven that I will do nothing but humiliate and abuse you," Rodney said, but his pupils expanded a little.

"I could go for a little humiliation and abuse," John murmured. "Anyway, how about we try playing for something other than chips?"

"Major." Rodney narrowed his eyes. "Are you going to propose something imbecilic and childish like poker in exchange for _sexual favors?_ "

John swayed back (Rodney licked his lips) and lounged against the wall beside Rodney, facing him. "Well, I was, but now..." He shrugged one shoulder. "I bet your luck's out, anyway."

"You bet that, do you?" Rodney said. 

"Used it all up," John said. He shouldn't shrug again quite yet, but he had this thing he could do with his eyebrows that was just as good, so he did that instead.

Rodney inched closer, into John's space. "You know, it's really unfortunate."

John slouched, and the boxed-up cards hit the floor with a flat _thwack_. "What's that?"

"You have very little understanding of the laws of probability," Rodney said. His lips brushed over John's and then away, and John inhaled as Rodney's hands settled on his hips. "Lucky thing you have a pretty face." Rodney paused. "Shame about the hair."

"Shut up about my hair already," John said. "And I think there's a decent probability that I'm going to get luckier before long."

"We'll see," Rodney said. He knelt, slowly, hands sliding down the outsides of John's thighs. John watched, eyes half-lidded, as Rodney looked at the bulge now directly in his line of sight. "Hmm."

John shivered; he couldn't feel the wash of warm air when Rodney breathed out, but he imagined he could, and hardened further. He closed his eyes. "Definitely a decent probability," he murmured, almost to himself.

Rodney stood up. "How about we put your money where your... mouth is," he offered, and showed John the deck of cards he'd retrieved. He smiled, crooked and gleeful and wicked, and John grinned.

"Humiliation and abuse it is," he said, and followed Rodney into his quarters without a backward look.

~end~


End file.
